Now Open!

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Tuesday was a big day for our church!

The official opening day of The Kessler Park Day School!!!

It was a joy to welcome new parents. LaTara and our teachers did a great job welcoming back old faces and new…and even set up a place for families to take pictures on their way to their new classes.

If you have not yet had a chance to tour the new rooms and the upgrades to the common spaces, I certainly hope you will join us at the potluck Sunday and do just that.

And as we have been saying in our last committee meetings….all of this is due to the extremely hard work of so many church members and staff.

I’ve also said more than once recently: this project of “turning around” these new rooms, of refinishing the common Day School areas, could easily have been a six month project.

(Probably should have been…)

But due to time constraints (ones we don’t need to rehash yet again…) and also the hard work of so many of you, it’s been accomplished in about 2 ½ months!!!

There is a great deal of thanks that we must all share for this. Certainly, our Trustees, led by Christine Holley, have been key. Christine managed all this while simultaneously moving to a new house and dealing with family medical concerns.

Thanks to all our current Trustees and to Lisa Rodgers and last year’s Trustees, too.

We should thank Church Council of the past several years, who initially approved moving forward with expansion of our school after we learned TKS would be leaving.

Our own Ron Nichols did excellent work as our contractor, not only providing quality work, but also keeping that work moving.

But probably no one deserves more credit for the project being finished on time than Ken Kelley. All Summer Ken has functioned as an unpaid project manager for this process, kept a lot of balls in the air, and spent way too many hours up here during the summer months. Some churches pay tens of thousands of dollars for project managers. Ken often stepped in to solve problems before anybody besides himself knew they were happening.

I do hope you all continue to express your gratitude to him when you see him next.

I want to also thank Kay Ash as well. Her passionate shepherding of the PDO program through some rocky times during these past several years was also crucial. Our school would not have been able to make this step without Kay’s management during the last years of Pastor Wes and the first years of the pandemic.

Kay not only managed much of the school administration during this time, but also helped us understand the state regulations concerning things like the playground expansion, and helped us manage that process.

Finally, LaTara Thompkins has stepped into her role as full-time director of the Day School with a lot of enthusiasm and considerable skill.

During these past weeks, LaTara and the Day School staff did a great job sharing the progress of our new rooms via social media.

I hope you’re following the KPDS social media accounts, where they’re posting updates:

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/KesslerDaySchool

Instagram:
https://instagram.com/kesslerparkdayschool

It’s hard to express just how excited and motivated the young parents I personally saw Tuesday morning are. They are thrilled with the upgrades to the school and the staff, and many expressed great gratitude for KPUMC’s commitment to their families and our neighborhoods. This is gratitude you all need to hear.

I certainly hope you’ll be with us for Sunday’s potluck as we tour the building. We’ll also plan to have the Day School staff present at worship soon and offer prayer for them and for the school year. And we have a playground dedication being planned for October.

So, on this special morning, I just wanted to be sure and thank you all….and some of you very specifically.

Tuesday was a very good day for Kessler Park UMC and I hope you share the excitement.

See the Changes "IRL"

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

“I know you told me about this, but now that I see it in person, I understand it in a new way.”

How many times have you said this to a loved one or friend? This happens to me quite often. I can hear some new thing described by a friend —either a joyful or heartbreaking issue, take your pick— but seeing it in person somehow gives me a new and deeper perspective.

There is something about seeing “IRL” (In Real Life) that is simply different and deeper than hearing about an issue second hand.

Next Sunday, our KPUMC family will gather together after the summer break. This will be our fall kick off “potluck.”

KPUMC All Church Potluck
September 10th, After Church
In Fellowship Hall

Bring a dish to share and catch up with your church family. 

Many of us have been traveling this summer. Others have been here and in and out of worship. But we join back together on this day for an important moment of “seeing IRL.”

There will be two things we hope to share with you:

1. Discussion of the “Simplified Accountability Structure.”

2. Our new Kessler Park Day School rooms and our Education Building.

A few words on both….

“Simplified Accountability Structure”
I hope you recall how we introduced this idea last spring. This is a proposed restructure of our four administrative committees (Church Council, Finance, Trustees and Staff Parish) into one administrative group that would lead our church. 

A brief summary of the “why’s” —rationales of why many of your staff and lay leaders believe this model is right for KPUMC — also appears in this newsletter. Feel free to review that and we’ll cover the details and answer any questions at the potluck.

Sometime this fall, at a date TBD, our church leadership is proposing we hold a congregational vote to enact this restructure at Kessler Park. But before we even consider a vote, we want to make sure everyone understands the proposal.

This type of model has already been adopted by many other churches our size, almost all other North Texas Reconciling Churches, more than 25 churches just in Dallas County alone, and is fully sanctioned by the United Methodist Church. (In fact, our process is being led by a “coach” assigned to us by the Metro District…)

Before we consider a church vote, it is important that all of our members understand why your church leadership believes this is a good move for our church. We want to be sure everyone understands what the model is, and why we believe it will help us drive ministry growth both now and in the future.

Day School Rooms/Building Tours
Also next Sunday, before and after the potluck, we truly hope many of you will tour our new Day School rooms and perhaps roam around the other parts of our building. MUCH has changed over the summer, and you need to see it with your own eyes!

In fact, throughout the fall, we want to encourage every member to take some kind of walk through our building. This will help you celebrate the “Phase One” completion, and also help get your own creative juices going on how we can use the rest of our building in the future.

Several times recently, we’ve had church members in our building exclaim “I had no idea these rooms were here!” Or, “Wow, the Day School looks great!” So come and see with your own eyes the great and exciting things happening at KPUMC.

It will be so good to see you all after this long, hot summer.

Do Not Be Afraid

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

As I mentioned Sunday, the Perseid meteor shower did not disappoint this year. Here is a picture that Dennise captured early Sunday morning.

The night before this picture, we both saw a shooting star unlike any I have seen before. It streaked across the sky with a trail behind it —like the contrail of a jet or the trail of some fireworks on the Fourth of July— and stayed illuminated for maybe like 20 seconds or more.

It truly took our breath away.

The Perseids come to us every year because of a very large asteroid that makes a very long orbit around our sun. To be specific, the “Swift Tuttle” asteroid. Swift Tuttle makes what is believed to be about a 200-year orbit around our earth. That little comet takes 2½ human lifetimes to just travel once around our sun.

Astronomy is filled with these kinds of awe-inspiring facts. As we laid flat on the dock at our lakehouse —as if in Savasana pose— we could see bands of the Milky Way, like cream in my coffee. We realized that we weren’t seeing stars…but that some of these bits of light were themselves entire *galaxies* of stars.

This never fails to help me see how insignificant all the things we human beings worry about are…how small my fears are in the vast span of all space and time. For me, there is something incredibly calming and humbling about looking up into that night sky and seeing all of that.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we have a well-known story of Jesus appearing to his Disciples walking across the water.

There is a big storm.
There is a big wind.
The wind is taking them in the wrong direction.
They are terrified.

They look up and see Jesus walking across the water toward them. And the most important words Jesus says to them are the very first:

“Do not be afraid.”

I’m confident many of you recall how these words are so important to me that I have them tattooed on my arm. I mean…these literal words Jesus says.

“Mé Phobeō”
It reads right-to-left for us.

Literally “Fear Not.” But translated in many accounts as “Do not be afraid.”

These words that Jesus says here are the exact same words angels say to the shepherds in the second chapter of Luke. (That verse was my own inspiration for the tattoo…)

The very first thing that happens in the story of Jesus on the night that he is born is that angels appear to those shepherds, and they look at those shepherds and say to them "Fear Not.”

A quick unverified account of my Greek Bible indicates that this very same word, Phobeō, appears 91 times in the New Testament.

Fear, my friends, is an emotion that Jesus wants to help us overcome.

Peter wants in on this “walking on water” business. He gets out of the boat and starts walking on the water.

And then, one of the best verses Matthew ever writes:

“When he (Peter) noticed the strong wind, he became frightened and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Did you catch what happens here?

Peter notices the strong wind.
The wind makes him afraid.

He looks at the winds. Not at Jesus…
He takes his eyes off the calming sight of Jesus.
He hears the wind, not Jesus’ calming voice.
And he starts to sink.

This, friends, is our very human problem, and what we do time and again.

Don't mistake this…sometimes there are really bad things that are happening… Sometimes there really is a bear chasing you. Sometimes we really are in a life or death situation.

But very often in our lives today. We are not beset with situations that are likely to cause physical harm. Yet when our phone dings, or the pundits shriek; when we hear of some horrible tragedy around the world, our bodies react as if we are in physical harm.

I think what Jesus wants Peter to do is very similar to what happens to us when we look up at the night sky: Just get more perspective.

Yes, there absolutely are strong winds sometimes. This is not a mirage. It is spiritual malpractice to pretend there are not strong winds and dangerous waves in our world.

But I think what Jesus hoped to model for his disciples here, and for us, is something like:

“Focus on God, not the waves. Focus on Jesus, not the winds. And the more you can do that, the more you can keep your own fear at bay.”

I want you to understand that this is not an easy thing to do. This is absolutely why I had these words tattooed on my arm…not that I am so spiritually adept at these things that I am boasting…but precisely the opposite.

Time and again, I need to look down at those times.

Time and again, when I am spinning out personally, Dennise will tell me “Look at your arm, Eric…look at your arm.”

I think especially in our day today there are many spiritual teachers who try to tell us - just practice this a little bit and you'll be all better. You'll get rid of all your fear. You'll be able to achieve anything you want to.

I am not saying anything like that at all. I am saying it is very *likely* that you are going to be afraid at all the wrong times. It is very likely that you are going to look at the waves and look at the wind and fail to look at Jesus. It is very likely that there are very real things that are going to cause you very real fear.

We've just been through a global pandemic together…
We are afraid we are going to not have enough money or resources…
We are afraid of our physical health, or the physical health of someone we love…
We are afraid of the direction our country is going, and that our leaders are perhaps taking us in the wrong direction…

All of these things are very real.
They are not fake.

These are actual waves and wind in the actual world of our lives.

But I think God whispers these truths to us…

"Look past the winds, look past the waves…”

"Look deep into space and see how small and insignificant everything around you is…"

“Believe and trust that I am with you…”

“I will not leave you alone…”

And even if, and when the worst things happen… even when the waves win or we start to sink… God says…

“I am still with you…”

“Fear not.”